A new community-dwelling study from Sweden suggests that the lunar cycle affects sleep in humans, with more pronounced sleep alterations in men than women.
Sleep varies to a greater extent across the lunar cycle in men. Image credit: Florian Kurz.
“Both the new and full moons represent significant turning points during the lunar cycle,” said lead author Dr. Christian Benedict, a researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University, and his colleagues.
“Following the day after the new moon until the day of full moon, also named the waxing phase, the moon’s illumination increases, and the timing of the meridian of the moon, i.e., when the moon reaches the highest position in the sky, is gradually shifted from noontime toward midnight.”
“In contrast, from the day after the full moon until the day of the new moon, also named the waning phase, the moon’s illumination decreases, and the timing of the meridian of the moon is gradually shifted from early night hours toward noontime.”
In their new study, the researchers focused on the contrast between the waxing and waning phases of the lunar cycle.
They obtained one-night sleep recordings from 852 participants (22-81 years old) all living in Uppsala, Sweden.
“We expected that sleep monitored during the waxing phase would be characterized by increased sleep onset latency and shorter total sleep duration compared to the waning phase,” they said.
“In light of previous findings, we also hypothesized that the association of the lunar cycle with sleep would differ between sexes.”
The authors found that human sleep can vary considerably across the 29.53-long lunar cycle, with on average shorter and less efficient sleep on nights during the waxing phase.
“We used one-night at-home sleep recordings from 492 women and 360 men,” Dr. Benedict said.
“We found that men whose sleep was recorded during nights in the waxing period of the lunar cycle exhibited lower sleep efficiency and increased time awake after sleep onset compared to men whose sleep was measured during nights in the waning period.”
“In contrast, the sleep of women remained largely unaffected by the lunar cycle.”
“One mechanism through which the moon may impact sleep is sunlight reflected by the moon around times when people usually go to bed.”
“In addition, a recent study suggested that the male brain may be more responsive to ambient light than that of females.”
The findings were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
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Christian Benedict et al. 2022. Sex-specific association of the lunar cycle with sleep. Science of the Total Environment 804: 150222; doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150222
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